In known patient medical record management systems, a clinical diagnosis is added to a patient record, but in the record there is typically no association with a financial reimbursement related code diagnosis description, such as an ICD9 code. The financial diagnosis code is associated with a patient visit and needs to be re-entered when a patient continues with visits to treat medical conditions which continue with the patient for an extended duration such as over a patient lifetime. Such medical conditions include, diabetes, congestive heart failure, and cancer, for example. Known systems employ financial system paradigms, in which visit identifier, and clinical diagnosis and associated code are typically re-entered for each visit.
In known systems, a clinical diagnosis is re-entered into a patient medical record management system in association with a visit record in response to a financial system requirement. Such systems fail to automatically manage a diagnosis which persists for a patient lifetime and burdens a clinician with a requirement to repetitively re-enter a clinical diagnosis in association with a visit record. Known systems also fail to provide a bridge between a financial diagnosis and clinical diagnosis. For example, an ICD9 code 174.2 description is: Malignant neoplasm of female breast Upper-inner quadrant and a corresponding clinical description is Breast Cancer. Known systems fail to automatically link financial and clinical diagnoses for use in appropriate record maintenance. A system according to invention principles addresses these deficiencies and related problems.